‘[A] thoughtful chronicle of one woman’s journey through experience to understanding – and a lot of fun to read’ – The Washington Post

‘Pure pleasure . . . jaw-droppingly shocking’ – Daniel Okrent, The New York Times

‘Mary Rodgers’s book has a humour and honesty that is very rare in entertainment memoirs’. – Sir Tim Rice

The wonderfully funny, candid and outrageous NYT bestselling memoirs of Mary Rodgers – writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and ‘a woman who tried everything.’

Mary Rodgers was the daughter of Richard Rodgers, who, with Oscar Hammerstein, wrote some of the biggest musicals of the 20th century-from Oklahoma! and Carousel to South Pacific and The King and I.

Shy is the story of how Mary went from angry child, constrained by a self-absorbed mother and her father’s overwhelming gift, to finally living life on her own terms-falling in love, often unwisely, marrying twice, having six children, and forging a career of her own.

Through her long and rich life Mary grabbed every chance possible-and then some. Her musical Once Upon A Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. She was the renowned author of the much-loved Freaky Friday books, as well as a close friend and collaborator of Stephen Sondheim, falling in love with him at 13 over a game of chess. She also dated producer Hal Prince and worked alongside composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.

With copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Mary’s collaborator Jesse Green, the chief theatre critic of The New York Times, the result is laugh-out-loud funny and frequently moving. Above all, Shy is a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don’t make any more. They make themselves.